Their deaths were not only marked by mass outpourings of grief from loved ones, colleagues and fans at the loss of great talents in their respective fields, but also for the privacy in which they dealt with the disease.

None of the men announced their diagnoses with cancer publicly, but also appeared to have told only their closest friends and family members.

Similarly, after announcing he had throat cancer, actor Michael Douglas later clarified that he had hidden his potentially disfiguring tongue cancer diagnoses at the recommendation of his doctors.

But while fame and the responses of the media may play a part in whether high-profile figures reveal their conditions, concerns about sharing the unwelcome news are universal.

At a time when the internet enables us to be more open about our lives than ever before, why do people continue to be secretive about their cancer diagnosis when the latest figures show that over 346,000 people get cancer each year in the UK.

Rightly or wrongly, cancer is still equated with death despite increasing survival rates, explains Jacqui Graves, the head of health and social care at the cancer charity Macmillan.

“I think that cancer is still taboo for certain parts of society. I think people in Britain are private and as a society people talk less about death and dying despite it being the only certainty in life,” she says.

Cancer which attacks intimate parts of the body can heighten the fear of how people will react.

Samia al-Qadhi, the chief executive of the Breast Cancer Care charity, highlights that some ethnic minority groups regard breast cancer as a taboo.

“We are working in these communities to raise awareness of signs and symptoms, as early detection is vital in providing more effective treatment and, ultimately, saving lives,” she says.

“Not everyone affected by this male-specific disease will be comfortable to talk about it, given that it can lead to impacts on continence and sexual function.”

And while most people will have had some experience with cancer – either by being diagnosed or seeing a loved one deal with the condition – the disease affects bodies in a highly personal way as there are more than 100 different types, says Ms Graves.

“The disease will manifest differently in different bodies and each person may have other illnesses running alongside cancer, for example they may have diabetes and cancer or heart failure and cancer, so it’s highly individualised.”

This naturally also applies to how each person copes with cancer, Ms Graves goes on and stresses and there is no “correct” way to deal with the disease and no shame or harm in hiding a diagnosis.

“There’s no right or wrong way to deal with a cancer diagnosis. Each person needs to find their own way of coping. For some it will be sharing it with everyone and for others it will be about keeping up appearances.”

“From talking to women on our helpline, we know that everyone deals with a cancer diagnosis and treatment differently,” says Ms Al-Qadhi. “Some are open, whereas others prefer to be more private and only tell a few people – it very much depends on what’s right for them.”

In the past two decades, fundraising campaigns have grown in popularity and have helped to combat the stigma and fear surrounding cancer, and have made people less afraid to be open about the harsh realities of dealing with the condition.

“Awareness of prostate cancer has grown thanks in part to high profile campaigns like Men United and Movember. We can see that more men are now being diagnosed at an earlier stage, when the cancer is easier to treat,” says Ms Culhane.

Ms Al-Qadhi says that such projects have also had a positive effect on attitudes towards breast cancer: “Thanks to high profile awareness campaigns, such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month which we brought to the UK in 1995, breast cancer is talked about much more openly than it used to be.”

Patients have also harnessed social media as a way to draw attention to the condition and to raise money – most notably 19-year-old Stephen Sutton who raised almost £5million for the Teenage Cancer Trust before he died in 2014.

But are brightly-coloured and sometimes adrenaline-fuelled fundraising campaigns and social media drives simply a new source of anxiety for cancer patients who may feel pressured to join in when they would prefer to simply hide away?

Ms Graves disagrees.

“I don’t really think there’s any expectation to do anything when a person has been diagnosed with cancer other than to cope with it in their own way – and they have to find their own way.”

Health news in pictures

1/21

Multiple Sclerosis stem cell treatment ‘helps patients walk again’

A new treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) has enabled some patients to walk again by “rebooting” their immune systems. As part of a clinical trial at Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital involving around 20 patients, scientists used stem cells to carry out a bone marrow transplant. The method known as an autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) works by using chemotherapy to destroy the area of the immune system which causes MS

2/21

Dementia patients left without painkillers and handcuffed to bed

Dementia patients experience a ‘shocking’ variation in the quality of hospital care they receive across England, a charity has warned. Staff using excessive force and not giving dementia patients the correct pain medication were among the findings outlined in a new report by The Alzheimer’s Society, to coincide with the launch of Fix Dementia Care campaign

3/21

Cancer risk ‘increased’ by drinking more than one glass of wine or pint of beer per day

Drinking more than one glass of wine or pint of beer a day increases the risk of developing cancer, according to medical experts. New guidelines for alcohol consumption by the UK published by chief medical officers warn that drinking any level of alcohol has been linked to a range of different cancers. The evidence from the Committee on Carcinogenicity (COC) overturns the oft-held view that a glass of red wine can have significant medical benefits for both men and women

4/21

Vaping ‘no better’ than smoking regular cigarettes

Vaping could be “no better” than smoking regular cigarettes and may be linked to cancer, scientists have found. The study which showed that vapour from e-cigarettes can damage or kill human cells was publsihed as the devices are to be rolled out by UK public health officials as an aid to quit smoking from 2016. An estimated 2.6 million people in the UK currently use e-cigarettes

5/21

Rat-bite fever

A teenager was hospitalised and left unable to move after she developed the rare rat-bite fever disease from her pet rodents which lived in her bedroom. The teenager, who has not been named, was taken to hospital after she complained of a pain in her right hip and lower back which later made her immobile, according to the online medical journal BMJ Case Reports. She suffered for two weeks with an intermittent fever, nausea and vomiting and had a pink rash on her hands and feet. The teenager, who had numerous pets including a dog, cat, horse and three pet rats, has since made a full recovery after undergoing a course of antibiotics. Blood tests showed that she was infected with for streptobacillus moniliformis – the most common cause of rat-bite fever. One of her three pet rats lay dead in her room for three weeks before her symptoms showed

6/21

Taking antidepressants in pregnancy ‘could double the risk of autism in toddlers’

Taking antidepressants during pregnancy could almost double the risk of a child being diagnosed with autism in the first years of life, a major study of nearly 150,000 pregnancies has suggested. Researchers have found a link between women in the later stages of pregnancy who were prescribed one of the most common types of antidepressant drugs, and autism diagnosed in children under seven years of age

7/21

Warning over Calpol

Parents have been warned that giving children paracetamol-based medicines such as Calpol and Disprol too often could lead to serious health issues later in life. Leading paediatrician and professor of general paediatrics at University College London, Alastair Sutcliffe, said parents were overusing paracetamol to treat mild fevers. As a result, the risk of developing asthma, as well as kidney, heart and liver damage is heightened

8/21

Fat loss from pancreas ‘can reverse’ effects of type-2 diabetes

Less than half a teaspoon of fat is all that it takes to turn someone into a type-2 diabetic according to a study that could overturn conventional wisdom on a disease affecting nearly 3 million people in Britain. Researchers have found it is not so much the overall body fat that is important in determining the onset of type-2 diabetes but the small amount of fat deposited in the pancreas, the endocrine organ responsible for insulin production

9/21

Potatoes reduce risk of stomach cancer

Scientists have found people who eat large amounts of white vegetables were a third less likely to contract stomach cancer. The study, undertaken by Chinese scientists at Zhejiang University, found eating cauliflower, potatoes and onions reduces the chance of contracting stomach cancer but that beer, spirits, salt and preserved foods increased a person’s risk of the cancer

10/21

Connections between brain cells destroyed in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease

Scientists have pinpointed how connections in the brain are destroyed in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, in a study which it is hoped will help in the development of treatments for the debilitating condition. At the early stages of the development of Alzheimer’s disease the synapses – which connect the neurons in the brain – are destroyed, according to researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia. The synapses are vital for brain function, particularly learning and forming memories

11/21

Sugar tax

The Government should introduce a sugar tax to prevent an “obesity crisis” from crippling the NHS, a senior Conservative MP and former health minister has said. Dr Dan Poulter believes that the case for increased taxes on unhealthy sugary products was “increasingly compelling”

12/21

A potentially “phenomenal” scientific breakthrough has offered fresh hope to cancer patients rendered infertile by chemotherapy. For the first time, researchers managed to restore ovaries in mice affected by chemotherapy so that they were able to have offspring. The scientists now plan to begin clinical trials to see if the technique, which involves the use of stem cells, will also work in humans by using umbilical cord material and possibly stem cells taken from human embryos, if regulators agree

13/21

Take this NHS test to find out if you have a cancerous mole

An interactive test could help flag up whether you should seek advice from a health professional for one of the most common types of cancer. The test is available on the NHS Choices website and reveals whether you are at risk from the disease and recommends if you should seek help. The mole self-assessment factors in elements such as complexion, the number of times you have been severely sunburnt and whether skin cancer runs in your family. It also quizzes you on the number of moles you have and whether there have been any changes in appearance regarding size, shape and colour

14/21

Health apps approved by NHS ‘may put users at risk of identity theft’

Experts have warned that some apps do not adequately protect personal information

15/21

A watchdog has said that care visits must last longer

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said home help visits of less than 30 minutes were not acceptable unless part of a wider package of support

16/21

Pendle in Lancashire tops list of five most anxious places to live in the UK

Pendle in Lancashire has been named the most anxious place to live in the UK, while people living in Fermanagh and Omagh in Northern Ireland have been found to be the happiest

17/21

Ketamine could be used as anti-depressant

Researchers at the University of Auckland said monitoring the effects of the drug on the brain has revealed neural pathways that could aid the development of fast-acting medications.
Ketamine is a synthetic compound used as an off anaesthetic and analgesic drug, but is commonly used illegally as a hallucinogenic party drug.
Dr Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, a senior researcher at the university and a member of the institution’s Centre for Brain Research, used the latest technology in brain imaging to investigate what mechanisms ketamine uses to be active in the human brain

18/21

A prosthetic hand that lets people actually feel through

The technology lets paralysed people feel actual sensations when touching objects — including light taps on the mechanical finger — and could be a huge breakthrough for prosthetics, according to its makers. The tool was used to let a 28-year-old man who has been paralysed for more than a decade. While prosthetics have previously been able to be controlled directly from the brain, it is the first time that signals have been successfully sent the other way

19/21

The biggest cause of early death in the world is what you eat

Unhealthy eating has been named as the most common cause of premature death around the globe, new data has revealed. A poor diet – which involves eating too few vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains and too much red meat, salt and sugar – was shown to be a bigger killer than smoking and alcohol

20/21

Scientists develop blood test that estimates how quickly people age

Scientists believe it could be used to predict a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease as well as the “youthfulness” of donated organs for transplant operations. The test measures the vitality of certain genes which the researchers believe is an accurate indication of a person’s “biological age”, which may be younger or older than their actual chronological age

21/21

Aspirin could help boost therapies that fight cancer

The latest therapies that fight cancer could work better when combined with aspirin, research has suggested. Scientists from the Francis Crick Institute in London say the anti-inflammatory pain killer suppresses a cancer molecule that allows tumours to evade the body’s immune defences.
Laboratory tests have shown that skin, breast and bowel cancer cells often generate large amounts of this molecule, called prostaglandin E2 (PGE2).
But Aspirin is one of a family of drugs that sends messages to the brain to block production of PGE2 and this means cancer cells can be attacked by the body’s natural defences

The definition of sharing can also vary from person to person, says Ms Graves, as some will tell their immediate family while a minority will keep it entirely to themselves.

She encourages patients who are finding it difficult to decide who to tell to talk to their healthcare team or the Macmillan support line staffed by trained nurses. Such people can help a person consider why they might be afraid of revealing their condition and to consider the outcomes of doing so.

And all the while that cancer is thought of as terminal despite the statistics, attitudes towards death must be changed, argues Ms Graves.

Describing the reassurance she felt when she viewed her grandmother’s dead body as a teenager, Ms Graves says she had looked “happy and at peace” after being in a lot of pain.

“At 18-years-old I’d never seen someone dead. I was really glad I did as I understood that death doesn’t have to be macabre or bloody or gory. Tt actually can be very beautiful and peaceful.”

Teaching children about death at school, encouraging people to talk about the phenomenon and plan their wishes for when they pass with loved ones can all help normalise death, she says.

In turn those diagnosed with potentially terminal illnesses such as cancer may feel more comfortable about discussing their condition.

“We should talk about death on a spectrum and as part of living rather than a gradual downfall. So getting old is part of living, starting to no longer be able to do the things you’ve always wanted or could do is part of living.

“We need to include death in the conversation about life and living, so it’s not about life and living and death and dying – but it’s about life and living and death as a part of that.”